Multiple Choice: It’s Not The Easy Part of the Test Anymore.
As finals move closer to the present, you can continue
to prepare yourself by practicing multiple choice questions. Most of your
professor will incorporate multiple choice questions on the final exam to help
you prepare for the eventual bar exam. The Ohio bar exam includes Multi-State
Bar Exam (MBE) questions and your professors will often style their questions based
on this format.
The
MBE style questions include several versions of the “right” answer, and require
you to choose the “best” answer. This is how your professors test on how well
you know the details of the rule. The “best” answer will include the right
reason on why that answer is correct. The MBE style questions are very difficult;
don’t let yourself fall into the multiple guess rut of undergrad. You can
master multiple choice questions by practicing.
There
are several resources available to practice multiple choice questions. Some of
my favorites include horn books (the examples and explanations series), flash
cards (the in a flash series), and the exam archive. The library usually has
the horn books available for check out (for 3 hour periods) and you can find
the in a flash series in the bookstore or online. These types of resources give
you a hypothetical and then give you the answer with the correct reasoning. I
found it helpful to get a group of three of four students together, read the
hypo, and discuss the reasoning before turning it over to read the “official”
answer.
Getting used to answering
it before reading the answer will help you on the test by reducing the amount
of time you spend on each question. The Ohio bar exam gives you 1.6 minutes (1
minute, 36 seconds) to answer each question. Your professors will usually give
you a bit more time to answer each question during the first year final exams.
Make sure you are prepared for the time crunch by studying and practicing for
these types of questions before the exam!
